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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Missed barbecue',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/08/02.jpg" alt="A semi-illuminated building at night" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			A first, I saw a horseman riding through the countryside with a large saddlebag.
			He was a merchant, so his bag would normally be full of goods, but today, most of the space in the bag was unused.
			He was on an errand to collect money owed to him, so all he brought were provisions.
			He pulls over under a tree to escape the hot sun while he eats.
			He throws a rock out of boredom after eating.
		</p>
		<p>
			It turns out it wasn&apos;t a rock though, but the pit of the date he ate.
			A man with a sword appears of of nowhere, threatening his life.
			The merchant rises.
			The man is furious and unmerciful, condemning the merchant to death for an accident.
			The merchant pleads, but it is in vain.
			The swordsman throws him to the ground and raises his sword to behead him.
			The merchant cries in fear, and tries to use religion to weasel his way out of his fate.
			This falls on deaf ears, having no effect.
			Eventually, the merchant finds the right combination of talk of religion and talk of ethical duty to get his life spared, but only for a year.
			Then he must come meet his fate.
		</p>
		<p>
			The merchant travels to many lands, paying off his debts, then goes home to say goodbye to his family.
			The family cries.
			He finds someone to take care of his children when he&apos;s gone, then spends the rest of his year with his family.
			Not wanting to be wasteful even in death, he brings some highly-worn clothing to die in, so as not to ruin his good clothing.
			He goes back to the tree at which he met the swordsman, and cries over his fate.
			An elderly man leading a gazelle comes by and wishes the merchant a long life, of all things, and asks about his reason for being there.
			The merchant explains.
			The man is impressed that the merchant followed through with such a deal, and sits down next to him to wait for the swordsman.
			One by one, a couple others join the party, one with a pair of dogs and the other with a mule.
		</p>
		<p>
			A dust storm suddenly begins brewing, and when it clears, the swordsman it standing in the middle of where it was with his sword drawn, still angry.
			He drags away the merchant, then demands that he stand for his death.
			The first of the merchant&apos;s three companions offers to trade a story for a third of the swordsman&apos;s claim to the merchant&apos;s life.
			This foreshadows that each of the three companions will tel a story to save the merchant in full, but doesn&apos;t actually make any sense.
			The swordsman can either kill the merchant or not.
			He can&apos;t kill two thirds of the swordsman.
			Still, for some reason, the swordsman agrees and we segue into the next story.
		</p>
		<div class="APA_references">
			<h2>References:</h2>
			<p>
				The Harvard Classics. (1909). Nights 1-3. The Story of the Merchant and the Jinni. 1909-14. Stories from the Thousand and One Nights. The Harvard Classics. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/16/101.html"><code>https://www.bartleby.com/16/101.html</code></a>
			</p>
		</div>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="EUGLUG">
	<h2>$a[EUGLUG]</h2>
	<p>
		It seems with the regular meeting called off this week, another member of the $a[EUGLUG] hosted a barbecue.
		I&apos;m not sure if this was a last-minute decision or if they just waited to announce it, but I was only told of in at 17:00 tonight, which was likely no more than an hour before it started.
		I imagine the other members were likewise notified pretty late.
		I&apos;d&apos;ve loved to have gone, but I don&apos;t pay much attention to $a[IRC] (where I was messaged about it) these days, so I didn&apos;t actually read the message until it was an hour and a half before midnight; surely it had ended.
		Too bad.
		Maybe next time.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
